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Online Coupon Shoppers Are Digital Sweet Spot for CPG

by Neal Heffernan , 01.08.2012

Digital coupon redemption has grown tenfold in just a few years – a remarkable achievement that calls out for further insight. Who are these coupon users, and how are they different from traditional newspaper coupon “clippers”?

Coupons.com Incorporated– the leader in the digital coupon space – has partnered with GfK to get a deeper understanding of these important consumers. Leveraging GfK’s coupon expertise and its database of 23 million loyalty card users (the National Shopper Lab), the research program has already yielded compelling results.

GfK examined 150 campaigns that ran on Coupons.com in a variety of major shopping categories – food, beverage, personal care/baby care, household care, health care and pet care. The results show that digital coupon users are shoppers that manufacturers definitely want to know.

We found that Coupons.com shoppers annually spend 50% more than the average shopper – a jaw-dropping figure. They also make 22% more shopping trips than the average shopper—1.3 trips a week vs. 1.1 trips a week. And they spend 23% more dollars per trip—$55.05 vs. $44.87. Heavy users of the Coupons.com use almost three coupons per shopping trip and save $231.21 annually by doing so.

Of Coupons.com users, 10.5% are so-called “Jumbo Families” – those with the highest numbers of kids, and have above-average college education and household income. This percentage beats the general population by 31%, where jumbo families account for 8% of all shoppers.

“For us, the key to gaining insight into the digital consumer is understanding what is happening in the household, and that's certainly what GfK brings,” said Mike Scriven, vice president of client marketing at Coupons.com. “Our work with GfK has been part and parcel to our further understanding of who these consumers are. They are the types of consumers that our CPG and retailer partners want buying their brands and going into their stores. They make more, they spend more on groceries annually and per trip, and they make more trips to the store. This kind of information drives home to our partners that using digital can really attract these desirable types of consumers.”

Scriven adds: “People have recognized that being conscious of their spending habits is a good long-term solution for them and are making it part of their shopping ritual. They don't plan to change that even when the economy improves. Survey after survey confirms that.”

To find out more about GfK coupon research, contact me at neal.heffernan@gfk.com.